


Oh Faire And Flighty Love

by RisingShadows



Series: The only dove I see [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, OT4 at the end, Tom Blake Lives, Will and Tom only appear at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: She came a month after the letter arrived. She came with the dying light of the sun illuminating her. Dirt staining her cheeks, a babe in her arms and fire in her eyes.
Relationships: Lauri/William Schofield's Wife
Series: The only dove I see [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746046
Kudos: 8





	Oh Faire And Flighty Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Bitter Water by the Oh Hellos

She came a month after the letter arrived. She came with the dying light of the sun illuminating her. Dirt staining her cheeks, a babe in her arms and fire in her eyes. Dark hair a mane around her head, and a tattered dress hanging off thin shoulders. Pale skin like porcelain, weary from flight. Wary from war. 

You open the door to meet dark eyes, wide and terrified. Of you, of the world around her so changed from everything she knew. Fear for the babe held in her arms, the child she was so desperate to protect, to save. 

She has walked the miles from the front line, from the small town of Ecoust, on the word of two strangers and a promise. A promise for safety, for a home, for the food the child in her arms so desperately needed. She has been brave beyond measure, and desperate in a way 

Terror melted into something else and you smile as well as you can. Offer your hand as the woman falters in front of you. You can see hunger in pale cheeks and beautiful eyes. Can see it in thin arms and the crook of the woman’s neck. In the shift of her shoulders, fabric sliding as she moves. You can see hunger and exhaustion mixing with fear. 

The child is hungry, the child is tired. The woman who holds her stands strong, lit by the sun but even that does not hide it. 

The child is not the only one hungry, the child is not the only one who has learned to be silent. 

“My name is Elizabeth.” Your voice is soft, careful, your hand outstretched in a silent offer as the woman watches you. This woman has learned fear, has learned hunger as you never have. But beyond that, she has learned something more. She has learned how to survive, how to protect the child in her arms, bright eyes blinking up at you. “The baby is hungry.”

It isn’t a question. It is nothing more than a statement of truth and when the woman looks down, tightens her hold on the child in her arms, you smile. The baby is not the only one hungry, you have had enough time to gather what they will need. 

For a moment the woman does not answer, not in words or actions. For a moment she watches you with something wild in her eyes that you cannot name and then slowly she smiles. A soft, careful thing as she takes your hand.

_It is the first time she takes your hand, it is not the last. It is the first time, and you feel the callouses, feel the warmth of her palm in yours._

In her arms, the child snuffles against her breast and thin hands gently tuck the cloth wrapped around it tighter. England is wet, the child is cold. And so is the woman that holds her. 

Her name is Lauri. It is a name that settles on your tongue, foreign and new and beautiful. 

A few hours later, when the two have been fed. The babes stomach full where she is still held securely in her arms and you guide her to a different room, your own in fact. A small crib for the child, a warm bed for her. In the morning, you can speak more. 

In the morning, the woman will stand with the child in her arms and watch the sun rise. Watch the clouds drift through the sky. Watch her girls dance through the garden, laugh under the great oak tree behind the house. 

You will be careful not to startle her. But you won’t miss the tears streaking down her cheeks. The soft smile as she watches the girls, as she listens to them play. 

You won’t miss the soft upturn of lips as she looks down at the baby, the quiet laugh as the child gurgles up at her. 

_She is beautiful and you remember the warmth of her palm in yours, you remember the warmth in the same way you remember the warmth of your husband. She is beautiful, but she is not yours and so you hold yourself back._

_She has a child to care for, and so do you have your own daughters to raise. A husband to wait for. She does not have time for you to want what you should not ask for._

It is later on, as dusk falls and you sit together by the fire. The girls already off to bed and the babe curled in Lauri’s arms and her belly full that you finally ask. “Have you named her?”

_You see the pain in her eyes, the grief she does not voice immediately._

She shakes her head, closes her eyes and whispers that she does not know. She is not hers, not hers to claim, not hers to name. 

But the child is hers now, is here, and the child needs a name and so you ask again. She meets your eyes and you offer what little you can in the face of the horrors they have survived and you say that this one will live, but to live she must be named.

 _This is when you see that fire in her eyes for the second time, this is when you realize that you want more than to look at her. More than to speak to her._

Lauri looks back, and she has fire in her eyes. They have survived, they have fought. They will not fall now. 

She names the child Angèle . 

You pretend not to hear her when she calls the child her angel, when she presses her lips to the childs forehead and murmurs the words over and over again. She has made it this far, they have survived this long. 

You teach her English in the garden with the flowers and herbs and vegetables. You teach her English late at night with a book settled in your lap, Lauri sitting at your knee. Leaning against the side of the chair to listen to every word. To whisper them back to you. To listen even when it is clear that she does not hear the words, does not learn them. But she hangs onto your murmurs even then and you do not stop until it is long past the time you should’ve been asleep. 

_You start to want more and more. More than the chance to see her smile, more than the chance to hear her voice. You want to run your fingers through dark hair and you want her to hold you and you want and you want and you want._

You start to want. You think you hide it well enough when you watch Lauri one night, the small pile of vegetables set before her. Watching as her fingers run gently over each one, washing the dirt from them as she murmurs the names. Over and over, she repeats them once, then twice before the girls sweep in and Lauri is turning away from the small pile of beets, and carrots, and potatoes. 

Lauri is smiling down at them as the girls chatter away and you know she only understands some of what they are saying. But she does not let that stop her as she crouches down, as she offers a slice of fruit from the counter and the girls take one each with wide smiling eyes. 

Angèle is a weight in your arms, giggling up at you and you cannot tear your eyes from this woman, lit by the dying sun through the small windows as she smiles down at your daughters. 

You think you hide it well even as you watch her settle, and learn. First, your name and Rose and Anna’s. 

_You want her to say your name, again and again. You want to whisper her name in her ear and hear your own murmured back._

She learns quickly. The questions she should ask, the answers she is most likely to receive. Sometimes, you watch as she weighs a question in her head, as she sounds a word out on her tongue and looks to you to know that she has been correct. 

She learns to ask and you always answer. 

There are questions you would like to ask her, questions you hold back because she is here to learn. To live. Questions that stall on your tongue because she is beautiful, she is more than anything you have ever known save the man you love and you cannot ruin this. 

_And yet you want. You want to ruin this, you want to take her hands in yours, to feel them. You want to feel her against you, her name on your lips. You want and you want and you want._

_You have an arrangement, a husband who will be happy no matter what you choose._

She comes to you one night. Long after the girls have gone to bed, she stands in the soft firelight and she is beautiful. Beautiful and otherworldly where she stands. She comes to you and she offers her hand, slowly and once you have taken it she leans. Close enough that you know, you know what she is asking. 

_You know what she wants, and what you want. You know what you have and what you can have. And when she leans in you waste no time in meeting her half way. Chapped lips pressed against your own._

She follows you to your room, she stands by your bed and you take her hands in yours. You read the question in her eyes, on her lips, in every movement she makes. 

“He won’t mind.” It is the truth. A whisper in the dark, carefully quiet to avoid waking any of the children. A whisper that almost seems to echo as you reach up, you do not touch. You do not let yourself when she has not allowed it yet. 

_You want to. You want to cup her face in your hands, you want to press your lips to hers. To taste her against your lips, you want and you want and you want._

_But you will not take what she doesn’t offer._

“Do you want this?”

In front of you, lit by the small candle that still burns on the other side of the room Lauri looks ethereal. Dark hair drawn back, pale eyes glittering where they meet. She looks like a goddess come to walk the world. 

She nods, a slow tilt of her head, shadows dancing across her cheeks. Across her throat, her arms, her chest. She leans close enough for you to feel her warmth and you lean in to meet her. 

_In the morning, you will wake to the sun in her hair, her skin glowing in the dawn light. In the morning you will look at features still lax with sleep and you will remember, her hands on you. Her lips against your throat. Her breath in the curve of your ear._

_Your name on her lips._

She will wake when you reach out to trace her features with a soft touch. Her lips, her cheeks, her eyes. She will look to you and you will lean in once more, will meet her lips with your own, will cup her face in your hands. 

When the time comes you drag yourself away, stand and look at her lit by the morning sun. You can hear the quiet chatter of the girls already awake in the other room. 

You learn French in the firelight with her settled at your knee like all those nights before. She murmurs what translations she can into your skin and you commit each word to memory. 

_It begins with poetry, and continues. Until you have read as many books as you own, until you are looking for more if only to hear her voice as she whispers the translations into your ear, against your skin._

You learn French in the garden, as she tells the girls the names and they listen with wide eyes. As she guides them through the flowers, and the herbs with gentle hands. As she tells them stories in careful English, translating each part as she goes so that they may remember it. 

Correcting the girls clumsy attempts at French with a smile on her lips, her eyes glittering as she guided the girls through each word. 

_You love your husband, and you love this girl and you wonder about the boy in his letters. You hope that he’ll bring him home. That they’ll come to the door together._

You take her into town one day, the girls running ahead of you, Angèle in her arms. You watch as she wanders the stalls in the market, as she runs her fingers over the vegetables and fruits. As she murmurs each name, her brow furrowed in concentration. 

The girls follow at her side. Rose clutching at her dress as they wander. Anna giggling on her other side. Later you slip away into the small book store on the other end of the market, you run your fingers over worn spines of old books and the pristine pages of those newly printed. 

The book is old, French scrawled across the top and you hide it away as you wander back. Rose and Anna calling for you as you turn onto the main street. 

_She looks up at you with a smile on her face, her hair lit by the sun, and she is more than any human. She is an angel, an old god, she is ethereal. You cannot pull your eyes away even as the girls take your hands._

By the time you are home the girls have regaled you with stories of their day, Lauri smiling indulgently down at them as they ramble on. The bags are an easy weight in your arms and you cannot weight. 

The wine you have been saving has no better use than now, it has been a year. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more. You cannot remember the date that she arrived as perfectly as you would like. 

You press the book into her hands long after the girls have gone to sleep, with the taste of wine on your tongue and you watch as tears glimmer in her eyes. She leans in, pulls you in, and you would never fight her. 

_You must be quiet, to avoid waking the girls, Angèle. But her hands are on you, your hands on her and every gasp is loud in your ears. You taste wine on her lips, you tangle your fingers in her hair._

_You love this girl, you love this woman, you love and you love and you love._

At night she reads you the book. She translates the words as well as she can and you listen as she leans her head against your knee. You run your fingers through her hair and whisper the words that you remember. 

You know your attempts are clumsy, but every greeting, every sentence, every attempt brings a light to her eyes. A smile to her lips and so you continue. And slowly, slowly you learn more. 

_Your bed is warm with her beside you. Her arms wrapped around you._

The war ends in November.

It takes a month before there is a knock on the door, before you open it to two tired faces. The girls are crying, Will stands with Rose in his arms, his boy, Tom, has Anna. The girls are not the only ones crying, silent tears streak down Wills cheeks, you don’t need to think to know you look the same. 

Angèle is secure in your arms, the toddler blinking wide eyes at the two men. 

Tom holds her, his hands are careful, his eyes wide as he blinked down at the life he held in his hands. When the tears start falling you are unsurprised when Will steps forward, when he winds his arms around the other mans waist and holds him. 

Will says they were lucky. He holds you in his arms and says they were lucky, to live, to return. To stand before you with all of their limbs, with their minds. Tom smiles behind him, nods and there is something painful obscured in his eyes. 

_That night, the four of you fall into bed. That night the bed is warm and you are safe, your limbs tangled with Will’s, your hand in Lauri’s hair. Tom pressed against Will’s back._

In the morning, the girls drag Will and Tom from the bed as the sun rises in the sky and you watch them, watch as Will lifts Rose into his arms, watch as Tom crouches down in front of Anna with a smile of his own. 

In the morning, you stand just inside the house as the girls lead them through the garden. As they name every fruit, every vegetable and herb in stumbling French. 

_You watch the boy, Tom, as he slowly repeats the words until the girls nod along. Beside you Lauri laughs at the inaccuracies and mistakes. Tonight, she can correct them._

_You watch as Tom looks at Will, your husband turned away, his eyes on some distant point._

_You think you could love him. You think you’d like to try._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So I finally decided to write some actual Lauri/Will's Wife (Elizabeth) and then at the end I turned it into OT4 anyways because I have no self control. This style is really different than anything I usually do but I thought it'd be fun to try so I hope I didn't do a terrible job.  
> I was planning to post the second one which is Lauri's POV at the same time but that one is taking me a little longer than expected so give me a day or two and it will be up.  
> Elizabeth only shows up in a picture and one line, which is written on the back of said picture and not even said out loud, but she owns my whole heart.


End file.
